Springbok

The springbok is an antelope closely related to the gazelles, but it is not a true gazelle. Gazelles belong to the genus Gazella and its relatives, found across northern and eastern Africa and Asia, while the springbok is the only living member of its own genus, Antidorcas. It shares the gazelle's slim build, long legs, contrasting colors and ringed horns, but it also has features no gazelle has. The most striking is a long fold of skin running from the middle of the back to the tail, lined with white hair that the animal can open into a bright fan. That pouch like fold gives the species its scientific name, marsupialis. Springboks also have a different number of premolar teeth from true gazelles. The common name comes from Afrikaans and Dutch: spring means to jump and bok means a buck or antelope, so springbok means jumping antelope. It is also the only gazelle like antelope found south of the Zambezi River.

A springbok stands about 70 to 90 cm at the shoulder and usually weighs between 30 and 48 kg, with males somewhat heavier than females. The body is slender, with long, thin legs and a short tail with a black tuft. The back and upper flanks are a warm cinnamon brown, the belly, rump and inner legs are bright white, and a broad dark band runs along each side, dividing the two colors. The face is white with a dark stripe from each eye down to the corner of the mouth. Both sexes have horns, which is unusual among gazelle like antelopes. A male's horns are thick, black and ringed, curving back and then in at the tips in the shape of a lyre, and can reach about 35 to 50 cm, while a female's are thinner and shorter. Along the back runs the dorsal fold, a pouch of skin that is normally closed. When a springbok is alarmed or excited, muscles pull it open to reveal a crest of long white hairs that gives off a sweet scent.

Pronking, also called stotting, is the springbok's trademark, and the word comes from Afrikaans for showing off. A pronking springbok arches its back, lowers its head, holds its legs stiff and close together, and bounces high into the air off all four hooves at once, again and again. Leaps of around 2 meters are common. At the same time it opens the white fan of hair along its back, flashing a bright signal across the plain. The most widely accepted explanation is that pronking is an honest signal to predators: a springbok that can afford to waste energy bouncing in place is telling a cheetah or a pack of wild dogs that it is healthy, has seen them and would be hard to catch. Pronking also warns the rest of the herd, and the white flash may help the group stay together as it flees. But springboks do not pronk only in danger. Young animals often pronk while playing, and whole herds sometimes pronk after rain, apparently out of excitement.

The springbok is one of the fastest antelopes in Africa. It can reach around 88 kilometers per hour in short bursts and, just as important, turn sharply at full speed and bound sideways, which makes it very hard for a predator to keep up. Speed is its main defense, because it lives on open plains with few places to hide. Its main predators are cheetahs, which rely on a fast rush from close range, African wild dogs, which run their prey down over long distances, and leopards, lions and spotted hyenas where they share the same range. Lambs are much more vulnerable and are also taken by black backed jackals, caracals and martial eagles. To protect them, mothers hide newborn lambs in long grass or bushes for the first days, coming back only to nurse. Herds help too: with so many eyes watching, a predator is usually spotted early, and an alarm snort or a pronk sends the whole group running. In the Kalahari, springboks are among the most common prey of cheetahs.

Springboks live in the dry southwest of Africa, in four countries: South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and southwestern Angola. Their heartland is the arid interior: the Karoo and the plains of the Northern Cape and Free State in South Africa, the Kalahari in Botswana and Namibia, and the gravel plains and edges of the Namib Desert in Namibia and Angola, where they reach Iona National Park. They prefer wide, open country with short grass and low shrubs, such as dry grassland, semidesert, dry riverbeds and pans, where they can see danger coming. They avoid dense bush, forest and steep mountains. Springboks are nomadic, following the rain. When storms bring fresh grass to one area, herds gather there from far around, then scatter again as the land dries. In Etosha National Park in Namibia and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park shared by South Africa and Botswana, they are among the most common large mammals. Most South African springboks today live on private game farms.

Springboks are mixed feeders: they graze grass and browse leaves from shrubs, switching between the two with the seasons. After rain, when the plains turn green, they eat mostly fresh grass and herbs. In the dry season they turn to the leaves and shoots of shrubs, flowers, seed pods, succulents and wild melons, and they dig with their front hooves for roots and tubers. This flexibility lets them live where few other antelopes can survive. Springboks are also famous for being able to go without drinking. They can get enough water from their food, especially from succulents and melons, and they often feed at night and early in the morning, when leaves hold the most moisture. They will drink when water is available, and in the hottest months they visit waterholes and pans, sometimes in large numbers. Their bodies also save water in other ways: they produce very dry droppings and concentrated urine, and they rest in the shade during the heat of the day.

Springboks are social animals. They form small herds of females and young, bachelor groups of young males, and territorial males that defend patches of ground with displays, dung heaps and sometimes horn fights. After good rains these groups can merge into herds of hundreds or thousands. Most lambs are born in the rainy season, after a pregnancy of about five and a half months, and the female hides her single lamb for its first days. In the 1800s springboks were famous for something much bigger. In years of drought followed by rain, vast herds moved across the Karoo and the northern plains in migrations that farmers called trekbokken, and writers described columns of springboks that took days to pass. In 1896 the writer Samuel Cronwright Schreiner and two farmers estimated about half a million springboks in view on a single plain. Hunting, fences and farming destroyed those herds, and the last great trek was seen in the late 1890s.

There is only one species of springbok, but scientists usually recognize three subspecies. The Cape springbok, Antidorcas marsupialis marsupialis, lives in the Karoo and the central plains of South Africa. The Kalahari springbok, A. m. hofmeyri, lives in the Kalahari of Botswana, eastern Namibia and the Northern Cape, and is generally the largest. The Angolan springbok, A. m. angolensis, lives in northwestern Namibia and southwestern Angola. The differences are mostly in size and coat shade, and some experts question whether they should be separated at all. Some South African game farms also keep black, white and copper springboks. These are color variants, not subspecies, and they appear rarely in the wild, but breeders selected them over decades because hunters and collectors paid high prices for them. Conservationists have criticized the practice, saying it serves the trade rather than the wild species, and prices for these variants have fallen in recent years.

The springbok is South Africa's national animal, and few wild animals are so tied to a country's identity. It has appeared on South African coins for decades and has been on the reverse of the Krugerrand gold coin since it was first minted in 1967. Its name is best known around the world through the national rugby team, the Springboks, who have won the Rugby World Cup four times, in 1995, 2007, 2019 and 2023. The emblem has a complicated history. During apartheid the Springbok badge was linked to whites only sport, and many black South Africans saw it as a symbol of exclusion. That changed at the 1995 World Cup, held in South Africa, when President Nelson Mandela walked onto the field in Johannesburg wearing a Springbok jersey to present the trophy. The moment became one of the great symbols of reconciliation in the new South Africa. For many South Africans, the animal stands for speed, toughness and the wide open landscapes of the Karoo and the Kalahari.

The IUCN lists the springbok as Least Concern, with an increasing population, and it is one of the most numerous antelopes in southern Africa. The story was not always so positive. In the 1800s and early 1900s, uncontrolled hunting, fences that blocked migrations and competition with sheep and goats wiped out the vast herds of the Karoo, and springboks disappeared from large parts of their former range. The recovery came largely from private land. In South Africa, game farming became a big industry from the late twentieth century, and springboks were among the most popular species to keep, for tourism, hunting and meat. Today most of South Africa's springboks live on private farms, and Namibia also has large numbers on farms and in communal conservancies. Etosha, the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park and the Central Kalahari Game Reserve still hold free roaming populations. The main concerns now are fences, droughts, and the moving of herds that may mix local genetic types.